Firstly, there was Kamui Kobayashi’s engine cover detatching itself during practice in Australia. Sauber have since modified the bodywork.

During the Australian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton’s floor became loose.

Nick Heidfeld also had a substantial amount of damage to his car’s bodywork, and it’s not clear how it happened. There is apparently no TV footage of it, and to my knowledge there has been no real explanation of what actually happened to cause the damage.

Then this morning the qualifying session for the Malaysian Grand Prix was halted after Sébastien Buemi’s left sidepod flew off his car and settled on the racing line.

There is every chance that this is all a coincidence, but I do find it intriguing that so much bodywork has fallen off the F1 cars this season already, and the second race hasn’t even started yet.

Update: I have been reminded by The F1 Times on Twitter that two onboard cameras have also fallen off this season already. Felipe Massa’s came off in Practice 3 in Australia, while Sebastian Vettel’s detatched in Practice 3 in Malaysia.

I remember Martin Brundle once describing how the fact that he was the oldest driver in the 1996 season caught up with him and began to define him as a driver. Despite having a reasonable season, by the following year he had switched to his new career in broadcasting.

Meanwhile, David Coulthard’s final season in F1 was littered with clumsy accidents. Didn’t his first corner coming-together in the final race of 2008 just sum up his season?

Now it looks like it might be Rubens Barrichello’s turn to have a rusty final season. Certainly, his Australian Grand Prix weekend was about as error-strewn as it gets these days.

There was an off during Practice 2. A further spin in Qualifying 2 ended his session early, cementing 17th slot on the grid.

Then on lap one of the race he went off at turn 4. Some time later, he steamed into Nico Rosberg at the same corner. It looked suspciously like a ridiculously optimistic overtaking move that was only ever going to go wrong. But Barrichello later blamed his tyres. This sounds like a tall tale to me.

Rubens Barrichello is not the oldest driver on the grid this year. That accolade falls to Michael Schumacher, who is probably seen by most as a separate case. Schumacher faces his own kind of pressure — the over-the-hill seven times champion who should have stayed in retirement while his reputation was still in tact.

Beyond that, Barrichello is the stand-out old guy in F1. He certainly has the longevity and experience in F1 that no-one else has. He has started a truly staggering 300 grands prix. That is an astonishing 36% of all Formula 1 grands prix that have ever been held! But the experience doesn’t seem to be doing him much good at the moment.

I hope it doesn’t turn out to be the case. It’s impossible not to have a soft spot for the Brazilian. But I fear already that he may be having his “Coulthard year”.

This section of the Formula 1 season, in mid-autumn, is the part that contains a lot of the “flyaway” races that take place in Asia. This means getting up at ridiculous hours, all for our fix of watching cars go round in circles for a couple of hours. This section of flyaway races, and the one that comes at the start of the season, truly is a feat of endurance.

This year at work, I have ended up with lots of holidays to use up before Christmas. I have decided to use a lot of them around these flyaway races to help me cope with the unsociable hours. It is working out fairly well — I might plan my holidays around the concept next year!

But here is the thing. Is getting up ridiculously early to watch the grand prix taking our devotion to the sport too far? Lukeh has just published a post about his inability to explain this behaviour to his colleague.

This is just adding to the thoughts I have been having about whether it is time for me to relax my policy of trying to watch as much F1 action as possible live, rather than recorded. Is it such a big deal if I swap ridiculously early mornings for a nice long lie in and the comfort of watching the race whenever I want?

The appeal of watching it live

Since I originally got into F1 back in 1996, I can only have missed a tiny amount of races. There was the 2000 United States Grand Prix, which ITV neglected to broadcast live on a proper channel, leaving us with a late-night extended highlights show. There may have been one or two other races that I have failed to see, but I don’t think so. Naturally, if I can, I watch a race live — and qualifying too. And practice if I can get away with it!

It is easy to understand why watching the race live would be preferable. For one thing, nothing beats the thrill of seeing events unfold in front of your eyes as they happen. You just don’t get that feeling if you’re watching the highlights later in the day.

It’s also pretty cool to have Twitter open and to chat with fellow fans about the sport we love as the event itself is taking place. And for me, watching the race and qualifying with live timing open is an absolute must. The onboard channel is another nice bonus. Anyone who has seen the set-up I use to watch races knows about my need to have data as the race unfolds. These options wouldn’t be available if I had recorded the race.

I suspect that one of the reasons I became interested in F1 was that it gave me an excuse to stay up late and get up at exotic hours when I was young, when I otherwise wouldn’t have been allowed to. I became hooked to the sport during 1996, but I have very fond memories of staying up to watch the 1997 Australian Grand Prix, when ITV had a full night of special programming celebrating their first race since winning the rights.

I am sure there is a fair bit of chest-beating as well. Putting ourselves through this sleep deprivation is like earning a badge of honour. F1 fans can often be seen boasting about just how much of the action they have seen live and how little sleep they have had. It is easy to get sucked into this mindset. I tell my friends with pride, expecting them to be impressed — but they only react with shock and disgust.

This is before we have even gone into the traditional argument in favour of watching live. What if you accidentally find out the result? Can you spend the day without living in utter fear of somehow overhearing what happened?

Would it be all that bad to miss the race?

I am not yet contemplating missing a grand prix entirely. But I am beginning to wonder if recording a race and watching it later would actually be good for my soul. I have a reputation among some of my friends — none of whom are all that into F1 — of being a tad too dedicated to watching F1, even if it means getting up ridiculously early.

This weekend’s Korean Grand Prix could possibly be the first race in a couple of years that I haven’t seen live. Not since I had to work on Sundays, at the late, great Woolworths, have I failed to watch a race live.

Tonight, I am staying overnight at a friend’s home in Dundee, as we are celebrating her birthday. Of course, this sort of thing comes first — so I am sacrificing the grand prix that takes place early on Sunday morning.

But I would by lying my arse off if I didn’t confess that I have been thinking of ways to consume the race live. Setting the alarm and surreptitiously getting up to watch the race at 6am would probably be socially unacceptable in the extreme — even if I use headphones and turn the brightness down!

In this case, is it worth listening to it on the radio if I can’t access pictures? Perhaps even watching it on the Softpauer iPhone app could be a good substitute?

I somehow doubt it. The sensible option is therefore to chill out, remain calm, sleep through it and do my level best to avoid any spoilers until later in the day when I can watch the race by myself at home without disturbing anyone else.

I am not sure that my friends are all that impressed with the sacrifice I am making though!

Now, after a Monza masterclass and a Singapore showcase, the Fernando-Ferrari package looks formidable. Alonso has the momentum, and has shot up into second place in the championship.

This isn’t just back-to-back wins. This is back-to-back wins on two circuits that are polar opposites of each other. Monza is a true low-downforce, high speed challenge. That was supposed to favour McLaren. Singapore is a circuit where teams apparently run with more downforce than they do in Monaco. That was supposed to favour Red Bull. Instead, Fernando Alonso was majestic in his Ferrari at both of these radically different circuits.

Much has been made of the fact that Alonso can also fully rely on the support of his team mate Felipe Massa, while both rival teams have both their drivers battling each other as well. But Alonso does not even need this support. Massa played no role in Alonso’s victory at Monza, and he wasn’t even in a position to assist in Singapore. Alonso is supreme — and that is what is making him the main contender now.

It is all the more amazing when you consider just how many mistakes Alonso was making earlier on in the season. It really was a case of unfulfilled potential at the midway point. There was the first corner incident at Melbourne. The jump start in China. The hugely costly practice crash at Monaco. Getting bogged down behind Petrov in Turkey. Botched overtaking attempts on Kubica and Liuzzi at Silverstone.

Ferrari were not having a great time either. The car has not always been competitive. Not so long ago Alonso was making negative comments about the pace of development at Ferrari, noting that it was much more relentless when he was at McLaren. Then there was the distraction of the team orders fiasco and the fallout that ensued. Yet now, Alonso is in the pound seats for the Championship.

Red Bull’s challenge

Red Bull have, all in all, looked like the strongest team all season. And although much has been made of their calamities, they have generally done a good job. More is made of their inability to convert front row starts into wins than is necessary. When there are 23 cars behind you, it is easy peasy for one or two of them to usurp you.

What is more notable is that Red Bull have had so many front row starts when the others just haven’t. And while the victories may have been a bit more evenly shared out, Red Bull have still be consistently up there, challenging all the way through the season while both Ferrari and McLaren have had peaks and troughs. Moreover, it has been abundantly clear that Red Bull have been innovating heavily throughout the season.

The fact is that Red Bull currently lead both championships. And while they have lost a bit of momentum recently, they are still the team that have the least to do in the remaining four (or three) races.

Has the tide turned against Red Bull? In one sense, no. Monza was always going to be their weakest circuit of the year — yet they still managed to finish 4th and 6th in the race. Not great, but not too bad either.

Red Bull’s biggest problem is not that they have lost momentum. They are still a formidable force, whether or not they have had to compromise on flexible wings and floors. No; Red Bull’s biggest problem is completely out of their hands.

McLaren on the back foot

Red Bull have to deal with the fact that essentially McLaren have faded into the background of the championship race. This means that the rewards are being split three ways rather than five. If Red Bull have a problem, it is Alonso who capitalises — full stop. Earlier in the season, it could have been either Alonso, Hamilton or Button. Not now that McLaren have essentially faded from view.

Spa and Monza were crunch races for McLaren, as the last two circuits in the calendar that truly suited their car. Neither race was perfect. Spa was not too worrying — Hamilton took a dominant win in arguably his most majestic display to date. Button was running well until his accident with Vettel.

But Monza must have rung alarm bells. Seemingly distracted by the decision over whether to run the F-duct, McLaren lost their grasp. Hamilton was rattled after his set-up disadvantaged him during qualifying. The team had to rely on Jenson Button to do the business at the front.

The problem is that Button has not looked like he has had the fire in his belly since some point in the season — maybe around Turkey? Button started the season with two victories in the first four races, but has not looked like winning since then.

Monza was a good chance. But in reality, it was clear all race long that Alonso has the superior pace, and there was nothing Button could do to avoid ceding the lead.

Hamilton, meanwhile, knocked himself out on lap one by getting involved in a needless accident — a scenario that was repeated in Singapore. While Alonso has been dominant and mesmerising, Hamilton has returned to his clumsy ways, misjudging a move for two races in a row. He has thrown away a shedload of points.

You have to question Hamilton’s mental state as we approach the end of the season. He was supposed to have shaken off these clumsy errors, but now he has only himself to blame for finding himself on the back foot.

Most worrying of all from McLaren’s standpoint is the fact that it doesn’t look like they know what to do to turn the tide. Since the failed upgrade package of Silverstone, McLaren have not been on great form.

It looks like Ferrari have won the development battle. The failure of experimental gearbox parts on Massa’s car in Singapore demonstrates that they are pushing very hard towards the end of the season. No wonder that all of his rivals now view Fernando Alonso as their number one threat.

Today, Williams can’t beat Ferrari, so I am rather indifferent about them. But at a time where the majority of the grid is made up of manufacturers — of cars and drinks — even I can see that there is something romantic about Williams. I think it would be good to see them at the front again.

But if I was a fan of the team, I would probably have well and truly lost patience by now. Every year the team says, “just wait — next year we’ll be back”. They spend all winter making positive noises. And then when it comes to the big day itself? They are even slower than they were before.

One of the most successful teams in history

When they last won a Constructors’ Championship in 1997, Williams had won more of them than Ferrari. The record was staggering — nine Constructors’ and seven Drivers’ Championships in just 20 seasons. It was an utterly fearsome record.

At that stage, Williams had won races in all but two of its seasons — its very first in 1978, and a brief drought in 1988 when the team had to make do with inferior Judd engines after Honda jumped ship to McLaren. Even then, Nigel Mansell managed to wring a couple of second place finishes out of it, which is more than can be said for what came after 1997.

Once again, Williams was left in the lurch after the departure of the front-running engine manufacturer — this time Renault. To make matters worse, chief designer Adrian Newey left Williams to join McLaren. 1998 was a year of continuity for Williams, in all the wrong ways — using what were effectively year-old Renault engines and what some said was the 1997 chassis adapted for 1998 regulations.

In 1999 the team faced further difficulties with Alex Zanardi struggling to adapt to F1 after a successful time in ChampCars. While the wins dried up, this difficult spell was thankfully short lived, as in 2000 Williams forged a new partnership with BMW.

2000 was a learning year for all concerned, but successes came between 2001 and 2003, when Williams returned to winning ways. Williams were even strong title contenders in 2003, with four victories and nine podiums, Williams were a strong player in a tight three-way battle for the championship. As unlikely as it seems today, Juan Pablo Montoya was almost a World Champion!

The slide from the top

Unfortunately, things started to go pear-shaped again in 2004. A radical “walrus nose” concept brought little in the way of performance, and a more conventional design was brought out midway through the season. Montoya managed to win the final race in Brazil, but this race remains the team’s last taste of success.

Almost every year since then has seemingly seen Williams slip back a bit further, with the successes of the old days becoming an ever more distant memory. In the past five years, the team has had just four podium finishes. (Barring success in Turkey, that number will reduce to three this weekend!)

The brightest spot has been 2007, when a consistent set of results from Nico Rosberg helped the team bag a commendable fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship (although that was after McLaren’s disqualification from the Championship). Apart from that, Williams have become a fixture at the back of the midfield — if you can call 8th out of 10 teams the “midfield”.

Arrogant enough to believe their own excuses

All the while, the excuses came, and fans were reassured: “next year is our year”. And next year comes and everything is all the same. Even if they trick people into thinking they’re fast by topping Friday Practice times, as Williams did in the first half of last season, people soon become wise to the fact that the car is not truly capable of it.

Before, there was always a positive spin to put on the situation. In 2009, Williams were bad — but at least Renault were worse and BMW weren’t much better. In 2008 people were more concerned with the alarming lack of pace in the Honda. 2006 was regarded as a tough deal for Williams, struggling with apparently sluggish and unreliable Cosworth engines.

It’s difficult to sugar-coat this year’s results in the same way. Although seventh doesn’t sound too bad, in effect the only teams that are behind them are either new (in the case of Virgin, Hispania and Lotus), facing hugely difficult political and financial constraints (Sauber) or have designed their own car for the first time (Toro Rosso). The shocker is that Williams are even being compared to teams like this.

Meanwhile, Force India look a great deal more convincing, and Renault have again leapfrogged Williams and look like potential challengers to the top four teams. Indeed, Toro Rosso even look like they can realistically challenge Williams on the racetrack, particularly with a couple of feisty young drivers who are stepping up to the plate in style, particularly in the case of Jaime Alguersuari. Meanwhile, in China Nico Hülkenberg finished behind the Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen.

It seems as though Williams allowed arrogance to get the better of them. It was always someone else’s fault. But increasingly, Williams have been made to eat humble pie.

Williams lay the blame for their early-2000s dip at the door of BMW. This ended in an acrimonious split in 2005, by which time each party had become convinced that the other side was not pulling its weight. But BMW did a pretty good job when they joined forces with Sauber, the disappointment of 2009 notwithstanding. Meanwhile, Williams became inert — a permanent fixture of the midfield.

Of course, if it wasn’t the engine’s fault, it was the drivers’ fault. I was very interested to see Frank Williams admitting that, in the light of Mark Webber’s recent successes, the team was too hasty to lay the blame at the door of its driver for their average spell in 2005 and 2006.

When we had him obviously our car was a disappointment and we felt he was part of the problem. He probably wasn’t actually, with hindsight. The major point was that the car had problems.

Is there a way back?

I think the Williams of today is a great deal less arrogant than the Williams of four or five years ago. But now the damage has been done. Is there a way back to the top for this proud team? 13 years on from its last Championship success, it’s difficult to see.

Already, there are rumours that Williams are unhappy with Cosworth (just like in 2006). Rumours are linking them to a partnership with Renault. Williams were linked to Renault last year too, and Frank Williams confessed that the prospect of “Williams Renault”, a reminder of the team’s most dominant period in the 1990s, was exciting.

Other rumours link Williams to a partnership with Porsche, with whom they have collaborated on kers. But the problems run deeper than the matter of their engine supply, as surely the lessons of the BMW split show.

Despite all of its history and past successes, Williams have tried and failed to recover for too long now. Sadly, it seems as though this year Williams have to make do with racing against the likes of Sauber, a zombie team that is on emergency life support, and Lotus, a team that didn’t even exist a few months ago.

I hope they can make it. I was privileged enough to be invited to the Williams factory and museum last year. The museum is a wonderful place, brimful of some of the most successful grand prix cars there have ever been. The team only goes back just over 30 years, but it is such a huge part of Formula 1′s history. It would be such a shame if Williams were stuck at the back of the grid forever.

That’s despite the fact that the grand prix wasn’t actually all that bad. Sure, it wasn’t a sizzler. But hardly the end of F1 as we know it. I reckon there were at least a dozen races in 2009 that played out in a similar way. In fact, this Bahrain Grand Prix had much more overtaking than the average race in 2009, even including the mad wet races.

There can not be a set of “fans” that complain more about the sport they follow. And yet, bizarrely, year after year, they carry on watching for some reason. Who’s the sucker here? It sure ain’t me.

Too much hype

The problem was that, as usual, F1 journalists went into overdrive with the pre-season hype. Time and time again we were told that 2010 was set to be the most exciting in years, although not much in the way of evidence was ever provided in support of this.

We were supposed to be excited because of the return of Michael Schumacher. But as I pointed out months ago, he was always bound to be off the pace, and so it proved to be. There will be no eighth world championship. Unless lots of sixth place finishes really get you going, there will be little in the way of excitement round here.

I think the new teams were also supposed to add a new dimension of excitement. They certainly have increased the level of interest in the back of the field — and a good thing that is too. But quite what else we should have expected as a result of their participation is a head-scratcher for me.

I seem to remember journalists banging on about the all-British inter-team rivalry at McLaren this year as well. That has also turned out to be a bit of a damp squib (so far). But it is not exactly a problem with F1 if one of them has so comprehensively outclassed the other already. Is Lewis Hamilton supposed to drop anchor just in order to increase the excitement here?

I sent the hypothetical question out there on Twitter — Can anyone remember the last time journalists didn’t say that the coming F1 season was due to be “the most exciting ever”? Alianora suggested 2004, which is a good thought. Although it was on the back of a really rather good 2003 season (tyre-rules-rigged-in-favour-of-Ferrari-scandal aside), and there was a lot of interest surrounding the radical Williams “walrus nose” (another damp squib).

The forgotten good news stories

No wonder people were upset. Not many races could have lived up to these expectations. What was, in truth, an average race (nothing more, nothing less) has been cited by hordes as definitive evidence that F1 is dying.

But I struggle to understand what people were expecting. Indeed, I have been quite surprised at the sheer number of interesting angles on the Bahrain Grand Prix that appear to have been largely overlooked.

• Fernando Alonso’s winning début — Okay, so this one has been covered extensively, but it is worth underlining. Alonso joins the select group of drivers to win on their Ferrari début — and he set a fastest lap over a second quicker than anyone else to boot. Forget the comeback of Michael Schumacher — Alonso showed his critics that he is the best, and with ease.
• Felipe Massa’s comeback — In his first race since his horrific crash in Hungary last year, Massa put in an admirable performance and finished second.
• The speed of Red Bull and Vettel — Despite the Ferrari 1-2, Red Bull have shown that last year wasn’t a blip, and they are serious contenders this year.
• Nico Rosberg outclassing Michael Schumacher — This one doesn’t fit in with the “Schumacher is the saviour of F1″ narrative, but even so I’m surprised more people aren’t hailing Rosberg’s success after what must have been a rather difficult winter for him.
• McLaren’s sneaky and massively clever pit stop strategy — McLaren appear to have exploited an under-advertised new rule that introduces a 55 metre zone round every pit box, designed to stop unsafe releases. My brother reckons McLaren are exploiting this to their advantage by bringing their cars in on the same lap as rivals that are just the right amount ahead of them, just to delay the release of that car. Genius (both McLaren and my brother!).
• Force India becoming the best of the rest — Most will have expected Williams to be the fifth team, but Force India look like they hold that position quite comfortably just now.
• A steady performance from Russia’s first ever F1 driver — Vitaly Petrov did a solid job in his first ever F1 race, running in a very respectable 11th place until a suspension failure. Petrov’s GP2 career was a slow burner, but his F1 career has got off to a bright start.
• Lotus beating Toro Rosso — This one has been covered extensively too, but it’s still worth highlighting again. Lotus — who have only had five months to design and build their car — have already emerged as the strongest of the new teams. They look to be around equal with Virgin in terms of pace, but definitely have the more reliable car — and even beat a Toro Rosso. Lotus are also bound to improve more than the other teams. At this rate, I’d be surprised if they don’t score a point this season.
• Virgin’s CFD-only gamble not backfiring — The question as to whether avoiding the use of a wind tunnel would be fatal to Virgin’s hopes has been put to bed. The car sets a decent pace, and the biggest problem is in fact reliability.
• Hispania’s miracle breakthrough — After a horrific winter, Hispania turned up at Bahrain having never tested, and did a hugely admirable job. Special mention should go to Karun Chandhok who did a great job in qualifying despite not even taken part in any practice!
• The less said about Sauber the better — although it’s still an interesting story.

It looks to me as though there is plenty for F1 fans to sink their teeth into just now, if only they tried. It is just that there was so much hype about the wrong things that the wood has been lost for all the trees.

But it can be improved

However, like most people I would prefer Formula 1 to have more wheel-to-wheel action. The signs at Sakhir were not particularly encouraging. I will reveal my thoughts on what’s what when it comes to on-the-track action in my next article.

Even though he has a tendency to fade away during races, Trulli is very quick over one lap and brings with him a wealth of experience that very few alternative drivers would be able to offer. He has also had a couple of highly impressive results this year, including an convincing 2nd place in Japan. But, fair enough, he’s a poor racer, so I could understand Toyota ditching Trulli in favour of another experienced driver or an exciting young talent.

But to, at the same time, appear to be absolutely desperate to also get rid of Timo Glock seems absolutely bonkers to me. Glock’s real talent remains to be seen. He has never won a race, and he tends to qualify poorly — but often races extraordinarily well. In this sense, he is almost a mirror-image of Trulli.

It is worth remembering, though, that Glock is still relatively young and therefore has a lot of potential to improve. I thought his 2nd place finish in Singapore was a hugely promising sign, in addition to some other impressive performances this season.

Yet, Toyota appear to be totally nonchalant about his potential, even on the back of that result in Singapore. Ever since then, they have contrived to replace him with Kamui Kobayashi, a Japanese Toyota protégé but an unknown quantity. He supposedly had a cold in Japan, so was replaced during Friday Practice at Suzuka. But no-one saw that Glock had much of a sniffle.

Then, since his qualifying crash the following day, he has been forced to sit out as a result of “cracked vertebrae”. But eyebrows are raised as Glock happily walks around the place. Phantom colds and injuries — it is almost as though Toyota’s doctor has been slipped a tenner to fabricate reasons for Glock to sit out the rest of the season.

Of course, Glock’s impact was mighty hefty, so he could well be injured and sitting out as a precaution. But it is very convenient that it should open the door for precisely what Toyota appear to have wanted, which was to put Kobayashi in the car ASAP.

Toyota have been in a strange position during this year’s Silly Season. They have been positioning themselves rather oddly. Experienced journalists are reading between the lines and saying that it’s because they will not be in F1 next year, despite having committed until 2012 by signing the Concorde Agreement. This is further underlined by the fact that Williams’s engine deal with Toyota has been terminated a year early.

Joe Saward has an excellent post today analysing the situation. Toyota leaving F1 is the worst-case scenario. The best-case scenario seems to be having a reduced budget next season. Since at least September, there has been talk of the Toyota F1 team having a massively slashed budget for next season.

For a number of months, Toyota boss John Howett has been talking down the chances of Jarno Trulli racing for the team next season. The claim is that Trulli is asking for too much money.

Why a team that is so low on money would go on to court Kimi Räikkönen of all people remains to be explained. Räikkönen has openly scoffed at the offer, by ruling out every team bar McLaren as a destination for next season. Quite right too. Räikkönen would be better off driving a bus than driving a Toyota F1 car.

No doubt Räikkönen is a better driver than Jarno Trulli or Timo Glock. Despite question marks over his motivation, at least Räikkönen has proved that he can do it. But let us face it — Toyota are living in a dream world if they think they can attract a driver of Kimi’s calibre for a cut-down price.

I was flabbergasted to read what John Howett had to say about his current drivers, who I think have done a good enough job this season:

We like Timo very much, he did a great job, but still we have a car that is more regularly capable of being on the podium and much closer to the top this year. We are not delivering, and there are things beyond the team and the chassis itself.

It is not difficult to decode Howett’s message. Don’t blame the car, blame the drivers. That is despite the fact that Toyota — in their eight seasons in Formula 1 — have never even looked close to having a car capable of winning an F1 race.

I also think that it is a bit rich of Toyota to complain about its drivers. They have always behaved a bit strangely when it came to their drivers. This is the team that did away with the promising partnership of Mika Salo and Allan McNish after just one season, for no good reason. This is the team whose most sophisticated driver choice was to hire a boy called Ralf then parade around the place saying “Schumacher drives for us!”, which at least pleased the marketing men.

Jarno Trulli is rightly miffed about John Howett’s stance.

Now I don’t know whether Toyota really wants to retain me or not. And with someone trying to denigrate me through the press… I’ve read many incorrect things about me. I haven’t spoken with the team about my contract for at least two months. So, either someone is playing dirty or maybe this person has been misquoted. But I keep calm and good.

Meanwhile, while Timo Glock has been lying in his “sick bed”, negotiations with Toyota for a drive next season are said to have completely collapsed.

So what are Toyota playing at? Do they seriously believe that replacing known quantities such as Trulli and Glock with the likes of Kobayashi, Nakajima or Sutil will pave the way for a more successful future? If so, I am sure they are the only ones in the world who believe it.

If Joe Saward is right, and this is all a final desperate attempt for the Toyota F1 employees to keep the gravy train running, they are surely only ensuring a bigger death a year or two down the line.

If Toyota leave, good riddance I say. Throughout their entire existence, I have found them to be easily the least likeable team on the grid by a long shot. Their behaviour this season has only further underlined my impression that Toyota is an entity that has no place in F1 and wouldn’t succeed in a million years.

First of all, it is worth pointing out just how awesome Sebastian Vettel was at Suzuka. At this “drivers’ circuit” which suited the Red Bull car down to the ground, Vettel was untouchable.

An error meant that instead of the normal on board channel, the BBC broadcast the on board camera of Vettel only for a large part of the race. Although this meant being unable to see any other cars on board, it provided an opportunity to watch an up-and-coming master at work. I can tell you he was definitely pushing hard, and to my mind he almost lost his car at Degner 2 twice. And they are only the moments I saw.

Vettel’s awe-inspiring dominance was in stark contrast to the other three Red Bull drivers in a weekend that promised so much. Even the Toro Rosso, which has been at the back for almost all of the season, looked like it had awesome pace. Unfortunately, its two rookie drivers both made a bit of a hash of things multiple times each throughout the weekend, meaning the potential came to nothing.

Webber also had a tough weekend after a big crash in Saturday Practice which left him with no car to qualify with. Having started from the pitlane, he then suffered a litany of problems forcing him to pit three times in quick succession. As a result, the race ended with one Red Bull dominating, and the three others footing the result sheet.

Beyond that, there is not much to say about the race. Jarno Trulli did a good job, which he does once or twice a year. But it’s not the sort of thing that would impress me enough to hire him. Maybe the new Lotus team will think differently.

For my money, the best action of the race came from Heikki Kovalainen. Firstly, there was his tangle with Adrian Sutil which appears to have divided opinion. I think it was a racing incident — Sutil was probably too optimistic to go for it, but Kovalainen was probably too eager to close the door abruptly having left it wide open in the first place.

But if that was a bad move from Kovalainen, he more than made it up with his gutsy and opportunistic overtaking manoeuvre on Giancarlo Fisichella while they were both coming out of the pits. I let out a yelp and probably woke up half the street at that time of the morning, as I thought it was going to end up as a huge accident. In the end, it turned out well for Kovalainen and I was left impressed. It is the only ballsy thing I can ever remember him doing. But it’s probably too late to save his career at an established team.

It says a lot about the state of F1 at the moment that the biggest talking point of the weekend was the way penalties were dealt with. Eight drivers were penalised after qualifying. Most were for ignoring yellow flags after Sébastien Buemi’s accident, another was for blocking and others changed gearboxes and chassis.

This left the entire world scratching its head as to what the actual grid might be. Apparently several permutations were doing the rounds, while the FIA decided to sleep on it and published the grid just hours before the race began. Seemingly this is not a case of the Random Penalty Generator — it all seems above board, with the grid having been determined as it should be by the letter of the law. But clearly this is a system that fails the fans. We watch qualifying to find out what the starting grid will be, only to tune into the race finding that the stewards have changed it.

Then there is the case of the investigation into Nico Rosberg failing to observe the lap delta times under Safety Car conditions. It transpires that Rosberg was unable to know what his target time was because the message was overridden by a low fuel message from the standard ECU. Given that McLaren Electronic Systems designed the ECU, my first thought was that this was a particularly elaborate way of penalising McLaren for the incident.

In all seriousness though, this just sums up how Formula 1 has been swallowed up by an officious governing body more interested in rules than racing. The Safety Car rules have become so ridiculously complex in the past few years, mirroring the crisis that hit qualifying a few years ago when several formats were tried out in quick succession.

I suspected that Nico Rosberg knew he was guilty of driving too quickly under Safety Car conditions when he conducted an evasive interview on the BBC after the race. When questioned, he would only say that he didn’t gain an advantage. When asked if he was within the rules, he only said “I definitely did what I should do”.

As it transpires, he probably had good reason to be coy given that it seems as though he simply did not have the information that should have been displayed, even if it meant he technically broke the rules. In that light, it is fair to let Rosberg off on this instance, but he shouldn’t even have been in this position in the first place.

Now we are left with the tantalising prospect of Sebastian Vettel making a Räikkönen-esque comeback. James Allen says that a mental block has been passed, with Vettel now within 16 points of Button with two races to go. That is closer than Räikkönen was with two races to go in 2007.

It still seems like a long shot, but if the momentum is going anywhere it is not towards Button. All of a sudden, the pressure looks like it’s all on Jenson Button.

That is not to say there aren’t a few talking points. Even though the race was quite insipid in many ways, there is little insipid about the podium. Lewis Hamilton put in a solid, though uneventful, performance to take a well-deserved second win of the season.

But I was most interested to watch the interview with his team mate, Heikki Kovalainen, after the race. Amid the latest rumours that Kimi Räikkönen is heading back to McLaren, Kovalainen is on the back foot. He needs to put in better performances in order to prove to McLaren and other teams that he deserves to be employed. But his demeanour after the race said it all — he sounded like a driver who realised he had been found out. 7th isn’t really good enough when the car is capable of winning.

Full credit must go to Timo Glock for finishing second. It is true that he largely inherited this position as a result of the woes of drivers in front: drive-through penalties for Rosberg and Vettel, and brake failure for Webber. But he was there to capitalise, having done well to qualify sixth when quite frankly to my eyes the car looked horrible on Friday. His team-mate Trulli, meanwhile, finished a lowly 12th.

Fernando Alonso obviously likes the circuit and scored the best result of the season at the same point where Renault’s fortunes turned last year. The Renault hasn’t looked capable of finishing on the podium all season. And Alonso has seemed strangely off-key to me this year. But he did it this time round, and caused a stir by dedicating his podium finish to Flavio Briatore. Some are interpreting it as a parting shot; others the human reaction of a man who has lost the boss who helped make him successful.

Whatever, it seems increasingly clear that his move to Ferrari for 2010 has been secured, with the rumour mill frantically suggesting that an announcement will come at Suzuka this coming weekend. Perhaps that is the reason why Alonso’s fire in the belly has returned to allow him to finish third.

Then we come to the title protagonists. Red Bull had another nightmare weekend which has pretty much hammered the last nail into the coffin for their championship hopes. All four Red Bull cars seemed to be suffering from brake issues, with such a failure making Webber’s race end in the barrier. Vettel could have had a much better result were it not for a drive-through for speeding in the pitlane, something which Vettel is adamant he has not done. In that context, fourth is a pretty impressive result for him.

As for Brawn, they salvaged something from what threatened to be a disaster. It seemed to be an up and down weekend for them. They seemed happy on Friday, but Button began complaining vociferously during Saturday Practice. Then both Brawns struggled in Qualifying, culminating in Barrichello’s session-ending crash. Ross Brawn declared qualifying to be disastrous.

As it was, they put in an okay performance during the race to finish 5th and 6th. Most importantly, Brawn have practically sealed up the Constructors’ Championship.

Meanwhile, Jenson Button has extended his Drivers’ Championship lead for the first time since Turkey. He edged further ahead of Barrichello by just one point, but with just three races to go, it looks like a tall order if anyone is to overhaul Button’s 15 point lead.

Maybe that makes the Championship boring now, which is perhaps why my eyes glazed over during that period in the middle of the race when nothing seemed to be happening. It has been an interesting season, but not an exciting one. Fair enough — we have had plenty of exciting seasons over the past few years and were perhaps overdue a dodgy one.

I am very much looking forward to the next race at Suzuka though. F1 finally returns to this classic circuit after three years, and it will surely provide a better class of show than the gimmicky Marina Bay circuit.

Just a final word about Adrian Sutil. What a chump. Fair play to him for trying to overtake someone, but his was a foul-up of Coulthard-esque proportions. Indeed, the entire incident was reminiscent of Coulthard’s attempt to overtake at Valencia last year.

But from my perspective, Sutil’s attempted move on Alguersuari was never on in a month of Sundays, and his determination to keep the throttle floored while in a spin was a stupid move when there was oncoming traffic. You have to feel sorry for Nick Heidfeld, who had his amazing run of consecutive finishes brought to a cruel end by a driver who should know better. Sutil’s $20,000 fine seems hefty, but I don’t feel much sympathy.

At least Badoer did not have a former team for him to compare. But Fisichella must have particularly mixed feelings as he struggles in his Ferrari while his former team Force India threatens to have the very fastest car in the pack.

A strong Force India showing at Monza was always on the cards. On the back of an excellent performance at Spa-Francorchamps, where Fisichella got pole position and finished 2nd, it was clear that Force India’s car was handy in a low downforce environment.

Force India were particularly bullish in the run-up to this race too. Knowing they may have had an advantage for Spa and Monza, Force India booked one of the few straight-line tests that are allowed per year for this week in order to maximise their advantage. It also gave their new race driver, Vitantonio Liuzzi, a chance to familiarise himself with the car (albeit not on a racetrack).

Liuzzi will probably be driving the very same car that Fisichella excelled in at Spa. It is little surprise that he has hit the ground running, qualifying a solid 7th for his first race since 2007. I have long felt that Liuzzi wasn’t given a proper chance in F1, and it delights me to see that he may now get a prolonged spell at a stable team. There have been strong rumours for a while that Liuzzi had a 2010 race contract with Force India in the bag already.

Meanwhile, Fisichella’s former team mate Adrian Sutil has his tail up, and appears to be adapting well to becoming Force India’s de facto team leader. He was probably fast enough to get pole position today but a mistake on his quick lap put paid to that notion. Nonetheless, Sutil must fancy his chances for a great result in the race, despite the fact that he is surrounded by kers-equipped cars on the grid.

Meanwhile, Fisichella, having chosen to move to Ferrari, is struggling to adapt to his new car and qualified 14th on the grid. He must be scratching his head a bit over the fact that his old car is seven places in front, and his former team mate is a massive 12 places in front. Fisichella says he is far from unhappy, and even takes pride from the fact that he helped develop that Force India to become a front-runner.

You certainly can’t blame him for deciding to move to Ferrari. Which would he prefer — a good result, or the chance to say he’s driven for Ferrari. He has three career wins already. Balancing the chance of getting a fourth victory in a Force India, or getting a moderate result for Ferrari, you can see even then why he might prefer the latter option.

What his performance so far this weekend shows you don’t have to have been out of racing for ten years to struggle to get to grips with the Ferrari F60. Yes, Badoer’s performances were not great, but I felt very sorry for him being expected to perform straight away in a car that is said to be difficult to drive.

Giancarlo Fisichella’s performance has not been quite as bad as Badoer’s. But given that he is fully race-fresh and fit, you would expect that. Fisichella will probably have expected to do better than this. It has been a slightly lacklustre weekend. He was 20th in both Friday Practice 2 and Saturday Practice. On Saturday he further underlined his difficulties by crashing at the Parabolica. Indeed, I found myself wondering what oh-so-hilarious nicknames the journalists might like to come up with now that a different Ferrari is struggling at the back.

Following Badoer’s struggles in Valencia, Ted Kravitz revealed that the F60 may be a particularly tricky car to master. The driver is required to do lots of hands-on switch-flicking and knob-twisting throughout the lap.

This is also Fisichella’s explanation for why switching to a Ferrari has not brought an immediate improvement in his pace as a driver.

It’s a different car so there is different reaction going into the corners. You work much more with the steering wheel and the switches compared to Force India. With Force India I was just concentrating on the driving, here I am quite busy.

As for his crash during Saturday Practice, that is said to be due to Fisichella adapting to the behaviour of the car under braking while it is harvesting its energy for kers. Kers was another worry that Fisichella did not have to deal with at Force India, but it is fundamental to the performance of the F60.

These insights about the Ferrari F60 remind me of the received wisdom about Ducati’s MotoGP bike. There are many parallels between Ferrari and Ducati, and this appears to be another one. The Ducati has long been famous for making previously-good riders look poor. Only Casey Stoner appears able to extract the full potential from it, while other Ducati riders tend to struggle to find any pace at all. The suggestion is that the Ducati is a very difficult bike to ride and that only Stoner has tamed it. Perhaps Felipe Massa had a similar magic with the Ferrari. (In yet another parallel, both Stoner and Massa are currently not racing in order to convalesce.)

The experience of watching drivers attempt to get to grips with a tricky car under the intense spotlight of a race weekend, rather than the relative privacy of a test session, has at least put a few myths to bed. Certainly, the idea that results are more down to the car than the driver was given a boost when Jenson Button seemed unable to stop winning at the beginning of this season. But it was dealt a blow when Luca Badoer stepped into the Ferrari, and finished last in Belgium when his team mate won.

Now we see Fisichella with his hands full and we are presented with a yet more complex picture. A driver needs to grow into his car. He needs to learn how to drive it and gain in confidence with it. It is also true that a car needs to suit a particular driver’s style. Arguably Badoer wasn’t given enough time to adapt, and Fisichella will need more leeway too. Here’s hoping the tifosi have patience with him if he is unable to score a good result during the race.